While the terror threat has been ratcheted up throughout the UK after the Manchester attack, with poor timing the chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland has announced that more than 200 policing posts are to go in the region. George Hamilton, the PSNI boss, said the jobs were being axed because of a £20m cut to the PSNI budget.

Responding to the announcement, the chairman of the Police Federation for Northern Ireland, Mark Lindsay, said the cuts were “unacceptable and dangerous”. He said:

This is a frightening prospect. A cut in the size of PSNI strength means dire consequences for levels of service the public has a right to expect.

Station closures, slower response times, low or no visibility on the streets, and all the time we face a terrorist threat rated ‘severe’ and a UK threat raised to ‘critical’ after the appalling Manchester attack.

We’ve been warning that this £20m cut was heading our way and that it would impact very badly. The chief constable is right to set out the challenges, but what he hasn’t told us is how he’s going to cut the frontline workforce. Will we see a slowing down of recruitment or will vacancies caused by departures or retirements go unfilled?

Whatever method is chosen, the fact remains that proposals of this magnitude are unacceptable and dangerous.

Jeremy Corbyn has said that Labour will resume campaigning later this week because terrorism must not “derail our democratic process”. He said:

The British people are united in their resolve that terrorism will not prevail. It will not prevent us going about our daily lives, or derail our democratic process. Resuming democratic debate and campaigning is an essential mark of the country’s determination to defend our democracy, and the unity that the terrorists have sought to attack.

As always, the response of emergency workers in the face of adversity has been second to none. The welcome support of the military to free up armed officers and offer public reassurance will no doubt be managed in the same professional, resolute way. But, as welcome as this is, we cannot avoid the reasons it is needed at all. There is no ignoring the fact that we, the police, simply do not have the resources to manage an event like this on our own.

A senior Muslim community leader in Manchester has said the Manchester Islamic Centre (MIC) has received reports of “anti-Muslim acts” ranging from verbal abuse to acts of criminal damage to mosques.

Fawzi Haffar, a trustee of the MIC in Didsbury, where Salman Abedi, the Manchester Arena bomber is understood to have prayed, said: “We are concerned about reports we are receiving about anti-Muslim acts. These are terrible anti-Muslim acts ranging from verbal abuse to acts of criminal damage to mosques in the area and outside the area. We do encourage any incidents to be reported as a hate crime.”

In a statement read outside the mosque, Haffar said the attack was a “horrific atrocity” and said “this act of cowardice has no place in our religion or any other religion”.

“We encourage anyone who may have information about the person involved to contact the police without any delay.”

He said it was not true that Abedi had worked at the centre and added: “We express concern that a small section of the media are manufacturing stories and making unfounded points.”

Abedi was a pupil at Burnage Media Arts College (now Burnage Academy), an all- boys school in a deprived part of south Manchester for 11- to 16-year-olds. When he attended, between 2008 and 2011, more than 90% of pupils were from a range of minority ethnic groups and a fifth of students had a refugee background. Results were below the national average.

In a statement, the school confirmed Abedi was an ex-pupil. The headteacher, Ian Fenn, said: “We are a Manchester school. We feel the pain that Manchester feels. We stand shoulder to shoulder with our fellow Mancunians against terrorism in all its forms. Our deepest condolences go to all who have been affected by this outrage.”